A Life Less Ordinary
by Aphelionite
Summary: ADMM. Minerva's thoughts about her life with Albus. Back story of OLD WOUNDS.


DISCLAIMER: It's all JKR, I just took it for a joyride. Ah, the sweet joy…

A/n: I tried but I had serious writers' block trying to write Old Wounds – so you get this instead. This is the little fic which spawned Old Wounds. From Minerva's point of view. Not set at any particular time but definitely before HBP and Dumbledore's untimely flying lesson. DUMBLEDORE!!

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**A Life Less Ordinary**

_**Aphelion**_

Someone asked me the strangest question today. Well I suppose it is not so odd, in fact maybe I should be surprised that no one has asked it before; perhaps they thought I would take it the wrong way or assumed that it was not a case of not wanting but instead being unable, and that is never a subject broached easily. The truth of the matter is that the opportunity never presented itself and now, at the grand old age of seventy-four, it never will. It seems a pretty sorry reason I admit for never having children of my own.

Of course I was married once, very young, during the Great War. My sweetheart and I were just one of the couples eloping left right and center; the world was an uncertain place back then, with Grindelwald reigning bloody terror, and we didn't know when we would see one another again after he enrolled to join the fight. As it turned out we never _did_ see each other again. A widow at eighteen I was understandably less than eager to throw my heart into harms way a second time.

And so it was sixteen years before I fell in love again (not that I hadn't indulged in a few fleeting dalliances along the way) but he was the Headmaster of a prestigious school and I a teacher fresh from training; the impropriety had us tied up in knots for months. Once we had thoroughly scanned the rulebooks and found nothing to contradict our feelings though we got 'tied up' in a very different fashion. Ahem. It has to be said that I cannot recall a happier time than those euphoric days and nights spent all too frivolously on reckless abandon. He was the very best of men; warm, thoughtful, spontaneous (when the mood took him) and hopelessly romantic at times. I fell hard.

But that happiness was short-lived. It was late spring; I had just received an early promotion to Head of one of the school houses and, naturally, with greater responsibility came bigger living quarters, so on this particular evening we were to be found unpacking boxes over a bottle of wine. Of course I'd told him I'd been married (though it was a painful subject still and I never spoke of my late husband) so he wasn't surprised to find a wedding album amongst my things. You can imagine that it was quite a shock to both of us when he recognised the man at my side in the pictures. They had fought side by side during the war.

At first he shrugged it off but I could see as the days and weeks wore on that it was eating at him. He became consumed with guilt, waking in the night in cold sweats, plagued by nightmares he refused to share with me just as resolutely as he refused the comfort I could have offered him. In the end he told me that he could not, in good conscience, continue to be with me when my husband had spoken so ardently of his love for his wife in those brief respites they had shared between battles. He felt as though he was betraying his friend. I told him I understood, his nobility was just one of the things I loved about him, but you don't know how I _wished_ he had never seen those photos. It is perhaps my greatest regret; the torment of that terrible 'what if' was almost unendurable to me in the dark months that were to follow, as we went back to being employer and employee.

For what seemed an eternity we acted as though indifferent acquaintances and it would have been all too easy to become bitter over what I'd lost. What should have been a glorious summer had been snatched away and in it's place I had only a sour taste in my mouth as I licked my wounds, and agonized over the question of whether or not to leave the school. I loved the job but I wasn't sure how much longer my courage could sustain me. I decided to stay another year, I could leave after that, I told myself, if I still wished to and anyway I wouldn't want to leave the Headmaster in the lurch (the new school year was almost upon us and it would have been difficult to find a replacement so late in the day). I had a thousand such excuses and only one real reason: as thoroughly as my resolve was tested when faced with seeing him almost every day, the alternative was unbearable.

In time, when we had learned to master our emotions, quell the perilous desires of lust, we found our way into a tentative friendship and from those first unsteady steps we discovered a lasting and profound companionship. I will not pretend that it has been easy, that I have not loved him from that day to this or that indeed my love has not grown deeper over time. But though he no longer shares my bed he has been more of a partner, confidante and steadfast support than most wives can boast of their husbands. I could never bring myself to remarry when I was, am, will always _be_ hopelessly devoted to him, as he has been to me.

And that is why I never had children. But I find it difficult to pity myself when I help to craft and hone young minds everyday. I have spent forty years teaching thousands of children; in a way they are all a part of me. My life has been neither loveless nor barren.

It has simply been of a more peculiar kind.

The End

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A/N: not quite sure where this came from, made it up as I went along… What do you mean "That's the point"?!

JE NE REGRETTE RIEN!!

12/09/06


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